I had bought this tuner about 10 months ago and have thoroughly enjoyed using it. It is a small, low-cost automatic tuner suitable for a base station, mobile or portable use. LDG’s advanced memory tuning, providing 2,000 memory locations. It handles up to 125 watts SSB or CW, but requires only 0.1 watts to tune, making it ideal for QRP operation.

This little tuner requires very little electrical power. About 200 mA when tuning and just about no current at all when receiving or in standby.

A couple of weeks back I went to a local hamfest here in southwest Missouri and picked up a 2-meter linear amplifier. I did participate in the 2m VHF contest back in September of 2017 and I enjoyed the contest very much and wanted to up my power from 10 watts to 80 watts. My ICOM 706 is an older model that does 2m-160m. 100w on HF and only 10w on VHF.

I guess you could say I have caught the “roving” bug! I am looking forward to the VHF contest January 20th to try to do some roving with my Jeep Wrangler which I am still working out the logistics on how I am going to make that work.

No matter what you do in amateur radio just remember it is a hobby but it is the greatest hobby in the world… 73 and have fun!

I didn’t prepare much for Septembers VHF contest. I threw together a 6m dipole and I already had a 3el 2m beam that I hadn’t used much yet! So that was my total preparation. My wife had some family property that was only a few minutes away from our QTH that was at a higher elevation than we were at home. So that is where we found ourselves with the Jeep and the rooftop camper.

I only had radio capabilities on 6m and 2m this year. Although we had a ton of fun we learned a lot for our next VHF contest!

Used the ICOM 706 for 2m ssb and the Yeasu for FM. We heard several stations in Oklahoma and even made a contact to EM19 in Saint Marys, Kansas to WQ0P and one more contact to EM49 near Bowling Green, Missouri. Both contacts were 120+ miles away. Not too bad for only doing 8 watts on ssb.

The wife and I hopped in the Jeep and headed for the Joplin, Missouri Hamfest that was held on August 26th this year. On the way down we listened to the 7.290 Traffic Net that was doing traffic for Hurricane Harvey that was hitting Texas.

Lots more people here this year than last year!

Hung out with W0EBV and had an eyeball QSO!

After all that walking around and looking at stuff we worked up an appetite, so we went to Denny’s and had much-needed lunch with dessert!

After lunch, we said our see ya laters and we slowly made our way back home after stopping at a few antique flea markets of course!

Field Day is a day I look forward to and making a bunch of contacts all over this wonderful world.

Last year’s field day, I was with a local club in west-central Missouri. We made just a little over 100 contacts — all on battery and solar power.

This year, I had different plans.

My wife and I needed to be in Tennessee. She had a conference in Franklin the same weekend as field day. I have a fellow Ham that lives in eastern Tennessee.

Well this is PERFECT! I dropped off my wife in Franklin and then drove over to New Market, which is just outside of Knoxville.

We had planned out the whole weekend, except for the weather!!! The forecast called for 80% chance of rain on field day… BOOOO….

Then field day arrived and no rain! Yippee…. No rain!

W4CEW and I were a little late for the kick off of the field day festivites when we made our way to his ham shack and fired things up. Whoaaa….. the amount of people calling CQ CQ CQ Field Day!!!

We tuned around and found W1AW on 17m calling CQ so we threw out our call sign and got a response back and swapped information (W4CEW 2D TN).

We sat around for several hours talking and listening to the others calling CQ. The next thing you know, Field Day had came and went.

Let us take some time to reflect on the contact that we made. Yes, I said contact, as in, one contact. That’s all we made was ONE contact! I guess if you are going to make a contact, W1AW is not a bad one to make on 17m!

W4CEW and I had so much fun just hanging out and listening to all the chatter on the radio.

Showing W4CEW all he contacts I made on Winter Field Day bak in January 2017!

I wanted to attend this gathering of QRP enthusiast last year but never made it. This year I knew I was going to attend at least on Friday evening. Only got to spend a couple of hours there and it was well worth it. I got so wrapped up in talking with people that I forgot to take pictures. I am looking foward to attending next year!

From time to time, I like to reflect on where I’ve been with my Ham radios. Here are some pictures from 2016 until now of some of my activations. None of them are NPOTA (National Parks On The Air) and none of them are SOTA (Summits On The Air). They are just plain old QSO’s and to keep in touch with my friends in Missouri & Tennessee when I’m traveling.

Lost Dutchman’s State Park – Arizona

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Lost Dutchman’s State Park – Arizona – working on 20m

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Holbrook, Arizona working on 20m

Morman Lake, Arizona at the Overland Expo working on 20m with one end draped over the rooftop tent.